He had assaulted brutally his brother-in-law, a member of the Da Souza
family--of that band of his worshippers. He did. Well, no! It was some
other man. Another man was coming back. A man without a past, without
a future, yet full of pain and shame and anger. He stopped and looked
round. A dog or two glided across the empty street and rushed past him
with a frightened snarl. He was now in the midst of the Malay quarter
whose bamboo houses, hidden in the verdure of their little gardens, were
dark and silent. Men, women and children slept in there. Human beings.
Would he ever sleep, and where? He felt as if he was the outcast of all
mankind, and as he looked hopelessly round, before resuming his weary
march, it seemed to him that the world was bigger, the night more vast
and more black; but he went on doggedly with his head down as if pushing
his way through some thick brambles. Then suddenly he felt planks under
his feet and, looking up, saw the red light at the end of the jetty. He
walked quite to the end and stood leaning against the post, under the
lamp, looking at the roadstead where two vessels at anchor swayed their
slender rigging amongst the stars. The end of the jetty; and here in one
step more the end of life; the end of everything. Better so. What else
could he do? Nothing ever comes back. He saw it clearly. The respect
and admiration of them all, the old habits and old affections finished
abruptly in the clear perception of the cause of his disgrace. He
saw all this; and for a time he came out of himself, out of his
selfishness--out of the constant preoccupation of his interests and his
desires--out of the temple of self and the concentration of personal
thought.

His thoughts now wandered home. Standing in the tepid stillness of a
starry tropical night he felt the breath of the bitter east wind, he saw
the high and narrow fronts of tall houses under the gloom of a clouded
sky; and on muddy quays he saw the shabby, high-shouldered figure--the
patient, faded face of the weary man earning bread for the children
that waited for him in a dingy home. It was miserable, miserable. But it
would never come back. What was there in common between those things and
Willems the clever, Willems the successful. He had cut himself adrift
from that home many years ago. Better for him then. Better for them now.
All this was gone, never to come back again; and suddenly he shivered,
seeing himself alone in the presence of unknown